In an old episode of The Simpsons, Springfield narrowly escapes annihilation from a comet. The relieved but astronomically clueless townspeople respond by torching the observatory where the celestial danger was identified, superstitiously convinced the building’s telescope created the threat.

Gov. Rick Snyder will get a similar torching from some, following his honorable decision to lead off his recent State of the State Address with a barely concealed rebuke of Dave Agema, the Michigan GOP’s notorious national committeeman. It seems nothing will convince Agema’s pathologically loyal rabble of supporters that their man’s behavior is un-American in the most toxic of ways. But the rest of Michigan - and its Republicans - needed their governor to take a stand.

While somewhat overdue, it turned out to be the perfect choice of platform. Most everyone who’s ever received a personal mention in a State of the State speech had it coming for good reasons: jobs created, military service, charitable work, and so forth. To use the speech as a platform for righteous criticism of one person was highly - if not entirely - unprecedented. It stood out in the best way.

Unlike the traditional positive recognitions, the offending party (Agema) wasn’t named. But when the governor chastised the source of “derogatory” and “negative” comments toward people of “different backgrounds” over “recent days and recent months,” there was little left to the imagination. And putting it at the front of the speech, when everyone was paying attention most, affixed a bulls-eye to the target. It was a carefully thought-out criticism, specific to one party, based solely on his malicious behavior - and delivered with tact.

It contrasted perfectly with the Agema style: Thoughtless criticism, based on lies, and tactlessly delivered to malign entire populations as if one man’s negative stereotypes can be broadly applied to millions of individuals.

His most recent crazy-making, maligning Muslims as having no positive cultural contributions, was perhaps the most numerically ambitious. There’s legitimate debate about the size of the gay population (another favorite Agema target), but it’s a relatively settled estimate that 1.6 billion souls are at least nominally affixed to Islam.

Pakistan provides just one tiny example of Agema’s cultural ignorance. The New England Journal of Medicine says 10,000 American physicians have come from this one Islamic nation.

About 2.6 million Muslims live in the United States, with Dearborn, Michigan, being the second largest urban concentration behind New York City.

Their votes shouldn’t dictate whether we treat them with civility. But it bears noting that George W. Bush claimed 44.5 percent of Muslims in the 2000 election, according to a poll by Zogby International.

Their frustration with Republicans grew after the subsequent landing of American troops to fight in two Islamic nations shortly thereafter. But there’s nothing more American than fickle voters, and a lot of non-Muslims were skeptical of those wars as well. What once drew Muslims to the GOP can draw them back..

Imagine how much worse it would be if Bush had spoken malicious lies about Muslims as Agema does. And then multiply that damage by every other population Agema insults.

Isn’t adding such coalitions supposed to be a job of a state committeeman?

What Gov. Snyder did was good human behavior, and good Republican behavior. But as with the ignorant villagers of Springfield destroying their telescope, there will still be Agema partisans who shoot the messenger for trying to tell them the truth. If they succeed in preserving their prophet of malice, it will happen at the expense of their party and the values of their nation.

Ken Braun was a legislative aide for a Republican lawmaker in the Michigan House and worked for the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. He has assisted in a start-up effort to encourage employers to provide economic education to employees, and is currently the director of policy for InformationStation.org. His employer is not responsible for what he says here ... or in Spartan Stadium on game days.